Biomedicine as a Contested Site

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Biomedicine as a Contested Site shows us the dialectics of power and knowledge in colonial societies of the past. Not only social historians will benefit from the insights provided by this book because its theme is highly relevant for understanding of contemporary medical pluralism in which biomedicine coexists with Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Just as in the past when indigenous medicines had to deal with the structural dominance of western medicine, the CAM practitioners of today walk a fine line between competition, accommodation, and resistance. -- Maarten Bode, University of Amsterdam Historians have long recognized that medicine and imperialism were intimately connected; that colonial power was exercised on and through the body in an attempt to discipline subject populations. But this book breaks new ground in its nuanced analysis of the ways in which biomedical power was exercised and resisted. Covering an admirably diverse array of colonial contexts, the essays show that the persistence of traditional ideas and practices, and the emergence of a pluralistic medical market, served to limit the effectiveness of Western medicine in attaining power of the bodies of colonized peoples. -- Mark Harrison, University of Oxford This remarkable collective scholarship demonstrates how despite the dominance of bio-power and its exclusionary and exploitative tactics, a sub-altern health contestation evolved in the context of medical pluralism in colonial times. This edited volume is a valuable addition to the repertoire of medical history. -- K. R. Nayar, Jawaharlal Nehru University All too often in contemporary discussions of the interaction between medicine and society, the historical and colonial underpinnings of the present conditions are glossed over. These outstanding and impeccably researched essays, covering almost every part of the globe, provide a much needed corrective to this state of affairs and contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex and contradictory relationship between imperial power and medicine. -- Zaheer Baber, University of Toronto